An pair of alternative keyboard layouts.

I created this repository mainly so I could have easy access to the layout files on other computers I use.

Do I recommend that anyone else uses this layout? No.

For anyone starting from QWERTY today, I would recommend the Gallium layout.

It is probably a better choice for most people. The biggest problem with Gallium for me is B on upper left pinky, which is not great for Swedish where -BB- is fairly common as in SNABB, the swedish word meaning FAST.

Hydra is the second revision of Miscreant, and I am currently learning to use it. It's a theoretical improvement with better stats across the board, but is unproven. Miscreant, on the other hand, is definitely usable and has proven itself over months of use.

Regular / ortholinear:

q f h k v j y o u /
r s n t p g c a e i
x m l d b z w . ' ,

Angle Mod version:

q f h k v j y o u /
 r s n t p g c a e i
  m l d b x z w . ' ,

Regular/ortholinear version:

q w h f k j p o u /
r s n t m y c a e i
x b l d v z g . ' ,

Angle Mod version:

q w h f k j p o u /
 r s n t m y c a e i
  b l d v x z g . ' ,

The repository includes downloadable layout files for Mac OS. Install them into ~/Library/Keyboard Layouts.

I have written a short essay about the layouts here.

Hydra draws inspiration mainly from two layouts created by Alan Reiser: Hands Down Reference and SNTH. HDR and its successors are described here while SNTH was described in a reddit thread here. Those layouts are themselves inspired and descended from other keyboard layouts, as part of an ongoing community effort to experiment with and develop new alternative keyboard layouts.

One aspect of keyboard layout creation that is rarely talked about or taken into account but which has influenced my layouts is whether a key is commonly part of a bigram with itself; that is, is the letter often written as a pair (TT is an example of a common bigram, while AA or II are less common and QQ pretty much nonexistant). This may be less of an issue in English than it is in my native Swedish, and perhaps this is why it isn't talked about much.

What I have found is that I prefer not to have keys that appear in pairs in certain locations: Upper index (QWERTY R or U) are positions that in Miscreant ended up with paired letters, and so one goal with Hydra was to rotate letters into those positions that rarely pair.